


now at last i can live

by radianceofthefuture



Series: Joy [5]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Catholic School, Choir AU, M/M, festive holiday lights are even prettier when reflected in your love interest’s eyes, heights, overtly religious holiday music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 15:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14621274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radianceofthefuture/pseuds/radianceofthefuture
Summary: Grantaire is leaning with his elbows against the railing. Enjolras always forgets how short Grantaire is; his personality and general loudness always make him seem taller, but now, when he is still and silent, he almost seems like less than his five feet and three inches. His dark hair catches the moonlight and shines, brighter than the frost sparkling on the branches of the trees.A high school choir au wherein Grantaire is nostalgic and Enjolras is in love.





	now at last i can live

**Author's Note:**

> This’ll be the last one.

Thirty minutes to showtime and Grantaire is nowhere to be seen.

Enjolras ducks around someone’s loitering grandparents, scanning the crowd. He is aware of the possibility that Grantaire just wandered off to use the men’s room, but he would expect him to tell someone where he was going rather than being there one moment and gone the next without explanation. Vanishing without a trace isn’t exactly Grantaire’s MO, so it isn’t like Enjolras doesn’t have cause to be concerned.

He nods to Combeferre’s parents as he passes them. They’re dressed better than anyone else in the atrium, which is only fitting; they take the arts more seriously than any other adults Enjolras has ever met. Combeferre’s mother restores paintings at the art museum in the city, and Combeferre’s father is an academic with a PhD in comparative Chinese literature and an extensive collection of Art Nouveau bronze statuettes. Combeferre didn’t just spring up out of nowhere.

Finally, Enjolras’ gaze lands on an exterior door, left open a crack, and he makes his way to it and slips out. The door opens onto the courtyard between the school, locked up for the night, and the crowded chapel atrium. The grass is dead and the benches are shrouded in decades of gum and graffiti, but over the low fence, the view is unparalleled, with the tree-lined suburban streets laid out and the city skyline blinking out at them from across the river.

Grantaire is leaning with his elbows against the railing. Enjolras always forgets how short Grantaire is; his personality and general loudness always make him seem taller, but now, when he is still and silent, he almost seems like less than his five feet and three inches. His dark hair catches the moonlight and shines, brighter than the frost sparkling on the branches of the trees.

Enjolras coughs gently to let Grantaire know he is here, then walks over to join him at the fence.  
“Admiring the view?” he asks. Grantaire tilts his head up to look at him.

“I just needed some air,” he says. “We’re probably warming up in there, aren’t we? I was just about to come back in.”

“Probably,” Enjolras answers. “That’s not why I came out here, though. I was wondering where you were.”

Grantaire shrugs, looking back out over the panorama. “I’ve always liked it out here. Everything looks so small and insignificant. It should be sad, but I find comfort in it; if this entire community can be reduced to that size, maybe all our problems can, too. It helps me clear my head a little bit.”

“What’s going on in your head that needs clearing?”

Grantaire laughs. It’s a small, dry sound, out of character for him. “I was just —“ he shakes his head. “It’s going to sound stupid, but I was talking to Joly and Bossuet. Bossuet got his head stuck in his robe, and we were helping him with it and just joking around, and all of a sudden, I just thought, this is it. We’re seniors now; this is our last winter concert. This is the last time we’re going to stand in the choir loft of the Petit-Picpus chapel and sing overtly religious holiday music. This is one of the last times we’re going to have to wear those stupid, highly flammable robes. This is it.”

He sighs, and turns his head to look fully at Enjolras. The cheerful Christmas lights on the houses far below them reflect and catch fire in his impossible dark eyes. “I’m just not ready for it to all be over.”

“It won’t all be over,” Enjolras argues, because he needs Grantaire to understand this. “Even after we graduate and we all go our separate ways. Do you really think you won’t be best friends with Joly and Bossuet for the rest of your lives? Do you really think we won’t all keep in touch with each other?”

“But it won’t be the same.”

“Not all of it, no,” he concedes this point. “We won’t all see each other every day. We won’t be within walking distance of one another. But the things that matter? The friendship, the camaraderie, the love... that’ll never go away.”

Grantaire looks down. It could be a trick of the light, but there’s almost a trace of a flush on his olive skin. “When you say love —“

“I mean it, R. I love you, and I really don’t see that changing at any point in the foreseeable future.”

Grantaire meets his gaze. He’s fully blushing now, and there’s a ridiculous grin breaking out across his face. He’s the most beautiful thing Enjolras has ever seen.

“I love you, too.”

The moment is broken by the door swinging open.  
“There y’all are!” It’s Courfeyrac. “The show starts in five minutes, and neither of you are in your robes. It’s freezing cold out here! Get inside!”

Enjolras and Grantaire look at each other and smile. As they follow Courfeyrac inside, Enjolras reaches out and takes Grantaire by the hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, as always, from Joy, a choral work by Hans Bridger Heruth.  
> I plan for this to be the last work in this series. Thank you to anyone who’s been following these stories. I have a few other ideas in the works, which should be up within a few months.  
> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/radiance-of-the-future) if that’s something you’d be interested in.


End file.
